SolarCity Is My Favorite Idea That Everyone Knows, But That No One Understands [View article]

SolarCity Is My Favorite Idea That Everyone Knows, But That No One Understands [View article]

I'm skeptical of some of your arguments.

It's claimed multiple times that solar thermal absorbs 5X more energy than photovoltaic. Do you have a source for that figure? If it's true (obviously it isn't), that would put solar thermal at >100% efficiency, in some cases.

Likewise for your claim that 70% of a building's energy demand is thermal. It seems reasonable but I wish you had some sources to back up (anything...) you've said here.

As far as Rube Goldberg goes, it seems equally complicated to have a solar thermal heating system plus a solar thermal cooling system vs one photovoltaic generator to run everything.

Finally, are solar thermal costs falling according to any type of "Moore's Law"? No they aren't, but SPV costs are.

All in all, it was an interesting article, but the analysis is shallow and I'm sure some of the statistics are wrong.

Yep, great article. I think we must be at a bottom for the industry. IIR JA Solar made ~$25M in profit but its market cap is only about $450M. Quarterly profit, alone, should be pushing these stocks higher, quickly.

The Impact Of SRP's New Pricing Plan On Residential Solar And SolarCity [View article]

I understand that Jim, but look at the document that "Dr. Feelgood" posted. SRP's justification for hitting solar and only solar customers with a $50/mo fee is that some vacation homes are not using their grid connections full time. Thus, it would be unfair to hit all customers with a $50/mo fee.

But doesn't that reasoning fall apart, considering that solar homes also rely on grid connections for just a fraction of the time? I really think that SRP is barking up the wrong tree with the "vacation home" line of attack.

The Impact Of SRP's New Pricing Plan On Residential Solar And SolarCity [View article]

Jim, I understand the situation pretty well due to a background in electrical engineering. PV panels produce 110V from the inverter and the energy is consumed locally. Compare to a power plant that produces 25 kV for transmission over long distances. It takes a LOT of infrastructure to step down the voltage and deliver electricity from the plant to every customer.

The Impact Of SRP's New Pricing Plan On Residential Solar And SolarCity [View article]

The Impact Of SRP's New Pricing Plan On Residential Solar And SolarCity [View article]

Thanks for the link.

My interpretation-- SRP says that solar customers place greater demands on the grid than regular customers, and they use vacation homes to make their case. I.e. vacation-homeowners shouldn't pay a fixed $50/mo since they are away for some months.

Yet there are no vacation homes with solar? Solar homes are always using the grid? I think the "vacation home" reasoning is pretty weak and they are going to get torn apart in court.

Solar generation doesn't require all the step-down transformer stations, etc that power plant generators require. So I think it's pretty clear that a solar home places less demand on the grid than the average customer.

The Impact Of SRP's New Pricing Plan On Residential Solar And SolarCity [View article]

If $50/month accurately reflects the grid maintenance costs, then the fair approach would be to charge ALL customers a flat $50/mo with an additional charge for electric consumption on top of that. Customers who pay less than about $60 or $70/month won't like that approach, but it's the only fair way.

I also find it hard to believe that grid maintenance costs account for 42% of SRP's expenses.

Doesn't matter much for the growth of solar power in the long run. Look what's happening in Hawaii...

Thanks a lot Bill. Let me crunch the #'s on current equity/share. Q4 2013 was at $10.08/share, Q4 2014 was at $12.38/share. As they said that financing is already mostly in place, hopefully we can expect less dilution in the future (minus the management options that you have already mentioned).